If MLK were alive today…

This was written by Iron Knee. Posted on Monday, September 13, 2010, at 12:01 am. Filed under Irony. Tagged Conservatives. Bookmark the permalink. Follow comments here with the RSS feed. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

On the issue on Conservatives trying to lay claim to King now, don’t we have to go back to the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
If my reading of history is correct didn’t the Conservatives take up the cause and push the legislation through while many Democrats including Sen Byrd opposed it?
According to the votes cast for the act, on average, 80%+ of Republicans voted for it, compared to 60% avg for Democrats. This trend followed for the house and senate votings.

So, who was a greater champion for civil rights while Dr. King was alive, Conservatives or Liberals?

sorry but the Republicans are the Democrats of old. If you look at the southern Republicans, they are a few generations removed from their Democratic ancesters. Lincoln would now be a Democratic. My great grandfather moved from Virginia to NYC after the war because the southern democrats were against any progress for the freed black. He became a Republican who espoused education for the freed slaves. All has changed.

OK – so even if i’m right the truth can be twisted 180 degrees and now i’m wrong? So basically, there is no argument, no matter what I say I’ll be wrong, how convienant. So, if old Dems are really the new Repubs then what was Sen Byrd, Republican or Democrat?

The numbers PatriotSGT cites strike me as accurate. But it is important to remember that through the mid-1960s, the majority of Democrats in power in Congress were the conservative, and racist, Southern Dixie-crats. Just like Lincoln was not the same kind of Republican as we have today, those Democrats were not the same kind of Democrat we have today. Republicans definitely made their pro-corporatist turn in the early 20th century, but at that time many Northern Republicans in particular were significantly more progressive than they are today. And certainly more liberal than any of the Dixie-crats.

If you are interested, you may want to read, “Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws That Changed America” by Nick Kotz. He does a decent job describing the political context in which the 1964 CRA was passed. It is very interesting reading.

I think this speaks to the complexity of people’s views and the fact that people’s (and even a political party’s) views can and do actually change over time. In recent years, Byrd was held liberal views and supported liberal policies. Not in every case, but in general.

In the 1960s, he was way more conservative than he was in recent years and a pretty solid racist. Remember, he was a member of the KKK. But that is nothing unusual for Southern men who came to power in the era in which he did.

Some of my students who interned in Congress state that Byrd, for all of his progressive views as of late, was still fairly chauvinistic. He was just so old that they just thought it was “quaint.”

No, “Patriot” sgt, you’re wrong because you’re doing the exact same kind of thing the cartoon above criticizes, which is trying to twist real history around to make it fit your fairy tale view of conservatives and liberals in history.

SOUTHERN democrats AND SOUTHERN Republicans opposed the Civil Rights Act. Most of the rest of the national parties (63% democrat, 80% republican) was on board with it, and it was signed into law by a DEMOCRAT president.

What happened was afterward, most of the SOUTHERN democrats switched parties, and the NATIONAL Republican party welcomed these open, militant racists with open arms. And they formed such a powerful and long-enduring coalition within the republican party that bigotry and xenophobia has become deeply ingrained in the GOP character.

Byrd repeatedly recanted his old racist attitudes and said many times that he was mistaken. How many times did a renowned GOP racist of the same era, Strom Thurmond, say the same thing?

Here is a link that gives the nuts and bolts of the bill and it’s history in becoming law. It includes the breakdown on voting. Interestingly, southern cngressman and senators regardless of party seemed to against, while their northern counterparts voted for, regarless of their party. That would mean there was a fair amount of all types including modern day conservatives and democrats that voted for the legislation. (don’t ask me what it has to do with astonomy, but it seemd to be the most concise)

That is, if you’re able to deal with actual facts instead of right wing fairy tales.

He was exactly what I was talking about earlier–a high-profile, unabashed racist that the Republicans welcomed into their ranks with open arms. And unlike Byrd, he never explicitly denounced his earlier racist views and policies.

Not You – It wasa less whether the politicians of 64 were dems or repubs, it had to do with whether they were northern or southern. If you read my second post and check the link you’ll see the point i’m trying to make. As far as my “far right fairy tale” I understand that you cannot see things from any other perspective but your own, and I forgive you. Now, if we are done with the rock throwing can we get on with a civil discourse on the subject?

“Patriot” sgt–its rock throwing now to point out where you were wrong and provide proof to that effect?

Or calling you out on your revisionist history and calling it fairy tales, because that’s exactly how much truth it contains?

Or to point out that these modern fairy tales are right wing, because ONLY delusional GOPers and Teabaggers even try to argue that what we define as ‘conservatives’ today helped with civil rights at all? THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE COMIC ABOVE, AND YOU’RE JUST PROVING THE CARTOONIST RIGHT.

But hey, you just keep ranting and insisting everyone who points out your falsehoods as ‘attacking’ you, we don’t really expect anything different.

Hey hey, let’s try to be civil in here! Can we have a little less name calling please? You know things have gotten out of hand when comments have lots of CAPITAL LETTERS in them.

The huge switch of Southern Democrats to Southern Republicans (which I lived through) even had a name, it was Nixon’s “Southern Strategy“. So while PatriotSgt’s numbers may be valid, they are misleading.

Alright, what I am trying to say (and possibly not so effectively) is neither party in 2010 can “claim” MLK. Neither party is as it was. There were no “progressives” and very very few “liberals” in 1964 so both sides are grasping for something that may not be theirs. Is there such a thing as a “conservative democrat” as existed in 1964. Yes, they are now called moderate democrats (of which I am one, and many in my family).

For Steve and CGE, yes I got off track, but my information is correct concerning the lines were drawn more by north and south then by the existing parties at the time and here is the data. Which as Starluna pointed out the political landscape has changed so much since that time, it is difficult to compare.

No political party can lay claim to MLK because he wasn’t an elected official and never officially belonged to one. The debate here is which ideological wing can identify with him the clearest.

There is clearly a small conservative effort to use King’s image in favor of right ideology, but I’m willing to bet that most left-thinkers would argue that King was a liberal through and through.

The fact is that left and right, conservative and liberal, Democrat and Republican (if you REALLY want to mix in political parties, though in this case it is unnecessary and counterproductive to the debate) are all so interchangeable when you get into details that trying to analyze the values of someone who died forty years ago is an exercise in interpretation, speculation, and creative persuasion. If you put enough of a twist on something, a liberal idea can be championed as a conservative value, and vice versa.